5 things I really hate about Facebook

Now we all hate Facebook to some degree. For some it’s the dreadful privacy policies, for others the way that companies and brands are trying to be cool and trendy with pointless competition and viral campaigns. But the things I hate most is how my news feed is being polluted by pointless, pseudo-feelgood garbage. Here are some examples.

1. Pointless Likebait

Likebait is like linkbait where some person seeks to harvest as many Likes as possible usually by sharing a supposed sob story about a sick kid/sick animal/etc. This is the old email chain letter in the age of social media. It is just some guy or more likely a marketing firm trying to harvest Likes.

So my Newsfeed gets stuffed with stories of some American kid who wants to meet Harry Potter and will do if only he can get 1,000,000 Likes.

2. Inspirational images

These I really hate. This is the equivalent of visual sewage. You have a picture of a sunset/baby/dandelion/kitten and some hideous piece of trite inspirational text taken from Jonathan Livingstone Seagull or Kahlil Gibran or some other equally vapid homily. These stupid images crop up on a seemly daily basis often shared from sites filled with this nonsense. My tip is to unfriend anyone who sends you this rubbish.

3. Cute animal pictures

Now I’m a fan of a funny cat picture or a lion picture but why do some people feel compelled to share these evey single sodding day. I mean it is possible to overdose on cute you know. When the sugar level gets too great there is a danger that you will go into a diabetic coma and I’m pretty close.

4. Insecurity posting

There are a group of people who are convinced that their friends will forget about them unless they post everyday. These people are more concerned with frequency than content so they will repost any old toot as long as they get likes and comments. So they spew out old YouTube videos by the score in the hope that their friends, who have naturally already seen the clip, think they’re cool .

5. Gamers

This is really the end of road in Facebook spam. In this nightmare your friends play games on Facebook and forget to turn off the auto-notify feature. So you learn that one of your friends has just reached level 95 in Panda Bouncy Bounce or another has just won the Golden Staff of Thrall in Legends of the Golden Staff VI. This is of no interest to anyone AT ALL. Message these people and tell them to stop it NOW.